


In Your Starlight

by kjstark



Series: Three Himbo Ghosts in Love [1]
Category: Julie and The Phantoms (TV)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Jealousy, M/M, Polyamory, Pre-Canon, They're alive for a while and then they're ghosts, Three-people Kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-20
Updated: 2020-09-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:27:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26552821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kjstark/pseuds/kjstark
Summary: He’s far in the back as usual and Reggie walks over to Luke and they share his mic while they sing the chorus of ‘Late Last Night’ and Luke’s eyes are fire as they stare into Reggie’s, both of them smiling widely.Alex bangs on his drums a little caught up in it and turns to notice Bobby’s just chilling in his spot, eyes closed, feeling the melody.Bobby was always quiet and minded his business, which was something Alex quite enjoyed about their newest band member, but it would’ve been helpful to see if anyone else had caught the energy radiating from Luke and Reggie. Just to check if he wasn’t seeing things or something.Now he was inevitably going to go back home and think about it for hours.
Relationships: Alex & Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex/Luke Patterson (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex/Luke Patterson/Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Alex/Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Luke Patterson & Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms), Luke Patterson/Reggie (Julie and The Phantoms)
Series: Three Himbo Ghosts in Love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1980635
Comments: 48
Kudos: 619





	In Your Starlight

**Author's Note:**

> I [watched the cast break down 'Flying Solo'](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AVsBJJMB3Go) and saw how Owen talked about the "fire" in Charlie's eyes when he sang with Jeremy and how Alex was jealous of that and this was the result. Anyways: long live polyamory!
> 
> The title is from one of the mentioned hits of Sunset Curve that we, just, never got to hear.

The first time Alex notices it’s after their third official gig, roughly four months since they started doing this whole ‘band’ thing for real. 

He’s far in the back as usual and Reggie walks over to Luke and they share his mic while they sing the chorus of ‘Late Last Night’ and Luke’s eyes are fire as they stare into Reggie’s, both of them smiling widely.

Alex bangs on his drums a little caught up in it and turns to notice Bobby’s just chilling in his spot, eyes closed, feeling the melody.

Bobby was always quiet and minded his business, which was something Alex quite enjoyed about their newest band member, but it would’ve been helpful to see if anyone else had caught the energy radiating from Luke and Reggie. Just to check if he wasn’t seeing things or something. 

Now he was inevitably going to go back home and think about it for hours. 

Which didn’t help his whole... _situation_ at all. 

“Thank you, we’re Sunset Curve!” Luke says into the mic once the song is over and Alex notices he’s mastered the ability to over-think _and_ play drums at the same time. 

It gets worse when Reggie and Luke share the same water bottle minutes later. 

Reggie at least has the decency to wipe his mouth after he took a drink of water (with a dash of Luke’s saliva, mind you) and Alex knows they’ve shared stuff like this a thousand times but his brain works the way it does. 

And now that he’s seen, he can’t unsee anymore. 

So, he studies how close to each other Luke and Reggie sit in the cafeteria, how they share the small bean bag chair in the studio, going so far that Luke actually wraps his arms around Reggie’s middle while Bobby talks about whatever new gig he found for them. 

Sometimes Alex would look at Bobby whenever Luke and Reggie are being weird just to see if Bobby’s there with him. In the whole, ‘this is not regular behavior, right? _Right_ ?’ turmoil of questioning, but Bobby is either clueless or doesn’t care or maybe Alex _is_ reading too much into it. 

But they’re certainly not that handsy with Bobby. 

Or Alex himself, for that matter. 

And maybe that’s the real issue. 

“Hey, Alex, are you with us?” Luke calls for him, throwing a cold, not-good-at-all fry at his head. 

When he blinks back into reality, Reggie’s eating Luke’s pudding. Alex wants to crawl into himself a little. 

“Yeah, what is it?” he asks, a little frustrated.

“Reggie asked if you had a date for prom already,” Luke says, pointing at Reggie with his thumb. 

“Yeah, because, dude, if you don’t, Lauren is totally head-over-heels for you. She’s been looking back to this table since last week,” Reggie comments, moving his chin for Alex to turn and see his biology classmate looking at him and then adverting her eyes immediately once Alex sees her.

“It’s a little ridiculous how you haven’t noticed, honestly. She’s had it for you since the first semester,” Luke jokes and then he and Reggie look at each other, pouting, like they pitty him.

Alex smiles bitterly. “Yeah, it’s ridiculous how some people don’t notice some things,” he says before he gets up and leaves. 

He sits on the bleachers while the lacrosse team practices on the field and he starts banging on the bench with his drum sticks, just to get his hands to do something while he eases off the feeling in his chest. 

So, what exactly pissed him off so much about this? 

Was it the idea that his bandmates —and closest friends— thought of him as straight? Was it the fact that they really have no way to know better because Alex hasn’t maned up to tell them? 

Or was it the fact that Reggie and Luke got to be that way with each other because they _were_ straight and that’s a level of comfort they would never have with Alex? 

So, that’s what it boiled down to: the fact that Alex wanted to be like that, too. 

The lacrosse ball hits him on the leg and knocks him over a little, shouting an “ow!” and grabbing his leg. 

One of the players comes over to him running. “Oh, man, I’m so sorry,” he says, taking off the helmet and running a hand through his brown locks to wipe off his sweat. 

Then he offers his hand for Alex to grab and gather himself but he’s just so out of breath and the guy’s eyes are olive-green and beautiful so Alex just stands up, mute. 

“Are you okay?” he asks, with a worried frown and a perfect square jaw. 

No, he wasn’t okay. 

He was really gay and really tired and now his leg hurt. 

“Yeah,” Alex breathes. “I’m fine.”

So the guy smiles and Alex feels his stomach flip over in his belly but before he can smile back, the guy’s already turned away from him and gone back running to the track. 

It’s fine, though, ‘cause the view works perfectly for Alex.

~~

So, it’s envy. It has nothing to do with Luke or Reggie themselves, it’s just that Alex wants his own guy to be handsy with. 

Preferably one of the guys from the lacrosse team. Or Trent Reznor, if his last dream was anything to go by. 

At least that’s what he’s sure of until the prom dance comes and the three of them decide to go stag because Alex was a liar but he wasn’t an asshole to go on a date with a girl he wasn’t into, for obvious reasons.

Reggie couldn’t find someone to go with because all the girls he was interested in were interested in someone else, specifically Luke or Alex himself. 

And Luke decided to not take up on any of his offers when he realized none of his friends were going with someone.

“We have each other, right?” he had said, and he pulled both Alex and Reggie with his arms and Alex thought maybe he could tell them soon. 

Luke and Reggie smile brightly at him sometimes so maybe they’d be okay, right? 

Or maybe he could lose them forever. 

Alex swallows at the thought and he lets go of the hug and looks down but neither of them notice. 

Reggie and Luke are good at not noticing things, after all. 

He stays with that worried taste on his tongue through the whole day until night time arrives and they’re going into the school gym to meet the controlled chaos of a prom dance. 

He’s been sitting on their table when 4 Non-Blondes starts playing and Reggie loses it. Luke laughs and joins him on the dance floor and Alex watches them again, from the back, bitter flavor in the back of his throat. 

Then they both turn to him and motion for Alex to go over to them with their hands. 

“Get here!” Reggie yells, excitedly. 

Alex frowns like they’ve lost their minds and shakes his head twice. 

Luke rolls his eyes and takes big leaps back to where Alex’s sitting. “Come on, Alex!” he says, and grabs Alex’s hand. 

“No, are you crazy?” Alex says, pulling back when Luke tries to pull him up from his chair. But he doesn’t let go of his hand. 

“I think you know me better than to think I’ll take no for an answer,” Luke says, bending a little to Alex’s eye-level, inches from his face. 

Alex swallows so hard he’s sure Luke saw it. 

But all his band leader does is smile and grip his hand harder. “Get out of your head and stop worrying about what people will say,” Luke says, in good nature.

And that’s about as encouragement as Alex needs to get up and join them. 

They dance the entire night, laughing and joking and they’re enjoying themselves so much that people don’t give a shit and Alex feels silly for ever being worried about this in the first place. 

“Bye, guys,” a classmate waves them goodbye when they’re leaving and as they start making their way to each of their homes, Reggie stops midtrack. 

Luke and Alex turn to him like they’re on a wire. 

“Do we have to go home right now?” Reggie asks, looking at his hands, joined together. “I just— I don’t wanna go there yet,” he adds, softer than usual. 

“Your folks are still fighting?” Alex asks, taking one step closer to Reggie to put a hand on his shoulder. 

Reggie nods. “I mean, they were when I left. They’ve probably stopped by now but my dad’s sleeping on the couch and he’s probably still awake right now so I don’t really wanna deal with him when I walk in,” he explains. 

Luke puts a hand on Reggie’s other shoulder and shrugs. “We can crash at the studio,” he offers. “Talk about Alex’s dance moves,” he adds, jokingly as he points at Alex and it gets Reggie to chuckle. 

Alex just shrugs. “I can’t help my feet,” he says, smugly. 

If they walk back to their studio with an arm around Reggie, Alex doesn’t try to make a big deal out of it in his head. 

But it proves to be a challenge when Luke and Reggie fall asleep on each of his shoulders and Alex sits stiff, his heart up his throat.

Looking at the soft, quiet faces of his friends while they sleep all over him, Alex realizes he had gotten it all wrong.

~~

So, he had a thing for Luke and Reggie. How was that even possible was beyond him. 

But they were the right amount of dumb and sweet that Alex seemed to be into. 

It was stupid and the worst thing Alex could’ve allowed to happen but now he had no choice but to live with it. 

And it made the whole ‘watching from afar how Luke and Reggie sing at each other’s faces’ even more difficult. 

He really thought he couldn’t have dug himself into a deeper hole until the actual worst thing happened: 

“We have to talk,” his father had said sternly and his mother’s eyes were wet and glassy.

In the table, the mag was lying wrinkled. 

Alex felt dizzy as he stormed out of his house in the middle of the afternoon. 

He runs to the studio before he could think about it, finding a loud sound coming from it. 

When he walks in, Luke was blasting to Now or Never, with a furious look on his face. 

He notices Alex right away and cuts off the music. 

“Alex, what’s wrong?” he asks, his face changing entirely. 

Alex lets out a long exhale, almost like a whimper, and crashes himself against Luke, not being able to help himself. 

But Luke holds him tight and strong, his hands firm on his lower back. 

“Hey, it’s okay, I’m here. You can tell me anything,” Luke says at his shoulder and Alex comes to think that Luke must be on his tiptoes to hug him like this. 

It makes him stop crying a little. 

“Just breathe,” Luke adds, running one hand through his spine. 

“C-can you count to ten?” Alex asks, still holding him. 

Whenever he feels this weird sting on his chest, Alex’s learned that counting his breaths helps him. 

Luke nods awkwardly on his shoulder and starts counting, slowly, until Alex’s managed to even his breathing and lets go of him. 

He stares into Luke’s eyes and sniffles. 

“What happened?” Luke asks, a hand on Alex’s neck. 

“They know, they know,” Alex can’t stop playing the moment in his head, can’t stop seeing his mom’s red-rimmed eyes. 

“Know what? Who’s they?” Luke asks, confused. 

“My parents, they—” Alex swallows and gathers all of his courage. 

It's now or never. 

“They know I’m gay,” Alex declares, boring his eyes into Luke’s. 

Luke’s mouth falls open a little before they both hear:

“Oh, that’s cool!” 

When they turn, Reggie’s standing by the garage door, eating a bag of Oreos, and wearing a big smile on his face. 

~~

Alex’s life doesn’t end then. At least not there. His parents don’t talk to him after he comes back and it’s like they’ve all sworn to silence. It bothers him because his parents always talked to him during dinner and asked questions about the band, and now it was like they couldn’t even look at him in the eyes. 

But now Luke and Reggie knew and that was enough for him, cause he had them at least. 

They still were handsy with each other more than they were ever handsy with either him or Bobby but at least Alex knew they were cool with him. 

Until they got the gig of their lives and Luke did what Alex imagined would happen inevitably but never actually believed it would: 

He kissed Reggie. 

He grabbed Reggie by each side of his face and excitedly pressed their lips together, stopping all of them on the spot. 

“Yeah!” Luke shouts happily and then moves to grab his guitar and continue with their practice before Rick had called them with the Orpheum news. 

Reggie stands there, mouth hanging, until Bobby chuckles. 

“If that’s how you’re gonna celebrate things from now on, stay away from me when we hit the Grammys,” Bobby jokes and the guys laugh. 

Except for Alex, who’s sitting by his drums thinking if what just happened was even real. 

And when Luke comes up with ‘Crooked Teeth’, Alex immediately knows it’s for Reggie and he’s not sure how to cope with that. 

“Cool song, Luke,” Reggie says after they play it all together for the first time. 

Alex raises his eyebrows at Luke and Luke smirks in confirmation. 

Alex feels glad to be in on the joke but he wonders if Luke would ever write a song for him. 

~~

They don’t “manly” kiss again while they do rehearsals for two weeks before the Orpheum gig but they continue to sing inches from their faces and Alex catches himself actually holding his breath at the expectation that it will happen again. 

And he’s both bothered but invested in seeing that.

~~

“Hey, Alex, can I ask you something? Bit odd,” Reggie says one afternoon when Luke and Bobby went to check out the new merch they’re gonna put out. 

Alex turns to him from the couch and moves his eyebrows for Reggie to go ahead. 

“How did you know— you know,” Reggie says, looking at his hands. “That you— you know, wanna do what bunnies do but with dudes?” 

Alex blinks at the ridiculousness of Reggie’s question more than at the question itself. “I— ok,” Alex mutters before he sits upright and shakes his head. He looks at Reggie and shrugs. “How do you know you like girls?” 

Reggie scoffs. “Duh, because I see a girl and my heart races— along with some other parts of my body,” he replies, quirking an eyebrow. 

Alex opens his arms in reply. 

“Oh,” Reggie realizes. Then he smiles. “So, do you like anyone?” Reggie asks and Alex thinks it’s cute how his lips curve in a tiny horizontal ‘s’ when he does that. 

“Not really,” Alex says. Like a liar.

* * *

Turns out there are worse things than having a massive crush on your two best friends and bandmates. 

Like dying from food poisoning at the age of seventeen. 

So if he cries for over an hour, he’s totally justified. 

~~

Alex’s afterlife was proving to be even more anxiety-inducing than his actual life and he was coming to think that maybe God _did_ hate gays. 

Though, that doesn’t really explain why Luke and Reggie suffered the same fate as he did. 

Or did it?

“Alex, are you listening?” Luke asks. 

“What?”

“I was telling you that I think it means something that Julie can make us be seen,” he says. 

“Yeah, I know, that’s why I’ve been pacing for the past thirty minutes,” Alex says, exasperated. 

And resumes to his pacing. 

Meeting Willie later on answered a ton of questions, but it did not help at all about a few other ones. 

And when Luke grabs Reggie’s neck again and gives him a peck, Alex’s quickly reminded of his former-life crisis. 

He bangs on his drums, hard. “Ok, you two need to stop doing that,” Alex says, standing. “I’m not about to face eternal afterlife dealing with this shit again,” he says. 

And maybe he’s pissed because Willie ditched him more than he’s pissed about his non-gay friends acting gay in front of him for shit and giggles but all he knows is that he’s had it. Officially.

“What are you talking about?” Luke chuckles. 

“Luke, I’m serious. You don’t kiss friends like that,” Alex says. 

But Luke crosses his arms after he throws his guitar to his back. “Well, I beg to differ. Right, Reg? What was it that you read?” he asks. 

Reggie raises a finger. “Oh, it strengthens the friendship,” he informs Alex proudly. 

Alex opens his mouth, baffled at their utter lack of brain cells. “You can’t be serious,” he mutters. 

“We are— in fact, we’ll prove it,” Luke says, determined, and he moves his head at Reggie, pointing to Alex. 

Reggie nods too excitedly and walks with Luke, moving his bass to his back like Luke did with his own instrument. 

Luke uses his feet to swing Alex around on his stool and Alex feels like he’s on a trance. 

Then they both bend a little to drop the most awkward, three-people kiss Alex could’ve ever imagined on his lips. 

Reggie looks at the ceiling like he’s thinking something and Alex hates the sole prospect of anything that comes from the messy void Reggie calls a brain. 

“I think we can make it work better than that, we just need more practice,” he says, looking between him and Luke, who nods with a confident pout. 

Alex also hates that he can’t help but love these idiots with all of his non-life. 


End file.
